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Friday, February 5, 2010

Friday, February 5, 2010

So Jen and I are in Texas, a state which apparently holds a deep and sordid hatred for me. See, I'm sick. Not dying-in-the-hospital sick but sick, nonetheless. And it's cold. And wet. And in the past week, we've moved ten thousand pounds of knick-knacks across Texas which, it turns out, takes approximately 7,000 hours to drive through, the whole time praying we don't plow into some random cow or windmill. Oh yeah... did I mention Jen's a bit grumpy?

So I'm doing today's wreck, and I'm pretty much just gonna rant. Let me set the stage:

I know, right? I feel the same way. But what I want to know is how hard is it, when you're on a freaking tropical island, to find fruit that isn't so close to being rotten that it makes your kids tipsy. And what's with the icing?!? I've iced a few cakes in my time and I've never seen anything like that. I take that back. Last week, my cat licked my shmeared bagel when I wasn't looking and it looked a lot like that. I mean seriously people!

*propping self up in hotel bed*

And another thing!

...

Nah... that's enough. Just one last thing: I've met a ton of Texans while I've been here and one thing is true of them all: they're all so stinkin' nice. What I want to know is how do you stay that way when your state is constantly trying to KILL YOU?!?!?!?!

Maybe we Texas have just learned to agilely avoid it's attempts, or we've made nice and now it let's us stay. It's like living in the fire swamp, you know. Just watch out for ROUS-es and you'll be fine.

So sorry you're sick again, but Texas loves you guys! Oh and it's easy to be nice all the time when the temperature rarely drops below freezing!!!! Now if we could figure out how to get rid of this humidity it would be paradise!

Sorry you're not feeling too well. Hope you get well soon.Well, considering some of the other things I've seen on this site, that is certainly not the worst of wending wrecks. Mum is getting married in less than 10 hrs and I am praying to the Gods her cake is not a monstrosity. If it is a good one (either way), I'll send it in. Tropical islands do have fresh fruit somewhere... jsut the local wreckorators don't know where (apparently). Sad!

First....don't die. Hope you feel better soon. Second....that cake is UGLY! My dog could have done better with his tail. BTW, we will be moving from Ohio to Arizona in less than 2 weeks! At least it's a one-way trip.

Oh man. Nearly-rotten fruit! Suuuuuper yummy! *grimace* I could deal with the cake looking like...like...that, to be honest, but the gross fruit? Nuh uh!

As for living here in Texas and being able to remain nice...

I usually don't wander outside much these days unless I need to do some something important. (...not that I ever really leave my house anyway. Too much sunshine most of the time! Especially during the summer. Heat + sunshine = sickly Druston.)

It's the only way I can keep from getting sick during the cold, wet season here in the DFW area. But of course, I suppose if you're traveling or here on business of some sort, you don't have much of a choice.

I hope you feel better! And I hope that should you ever come back to Texas, it won't try to kill you for the umpteenth time. ._.

Welcome to TEXAS!!! Sorry you're having a rough go of it. I think that is why we Texans love our state so much. It is way too long of a drive to try to get out of it so we just vacation within. The weather really sucks this week. Usually it's beautiful this time of year. The only time that it isn't scorching hot!

If it's any consolation, I'm a native Texan and I'm sick right now, too. We usually blame any problems on all the "derned foreigners" (i.e. non-Texans) that move here, but actually we're all secretly happy that everyone else has figured out that Texas rocks. :) Hope you're better and hope you're not anywhere near Plano this time. But if you are I'll take you out to lunch.

I too love the Happy Birthday wrapping paper they used under the two cakes in the front. I don't think I would eat that cake though. I am pretty positive they did not even bother to wash the fruit and most foreign places still use "natural human" fertilizers. When we went to Europe after watching one farmer at a B&B we stayed at "fertilize" his farm we throughly not only washed but scrubbed and peeled everything. LOL Love the blog, hope you feel better!

I moved to TX in September, and have been sick ever since. I've been told it takes at least 6 months to get used to the new germs and allergens. Fun times, man, fun times. I really have no comments on that sad, sad cake, tho. It looks like I feel, I think.

Ah, yes. We Texans sure are nice until you drive in traffic (yes Stewbie2 is right, stay away from I-10 please, for the LOVE OF GOD!)! And I too am sick, we have every type of allergy here and some that I've only heard of living here, we're special like that too!

Be safe, be careful and get well. And if you're in the panhandle watch out for snow. If you're in the San Antonio area lets do lunch when you're better!

OH WOW! Are you coming to the Austin cake show in a few weeks? I've been bugging the lead organizers to invite you and last I'd heard they'd emailled you but hadn't heard back and we all want you to come to the show!

It's a sci-fi theme this year! Check out my early teaser photos of my sci-fi-mega cake: http://kimberlychapman.livejournal.com/522510.html#cutid1 You KNOW you HAVE to come see a cake with a Hal brain room on it!

So many people in Austin couldn't come to your second book signing and I'm quite certain you could have another signing at the show. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease come!

I've heard that all Texans are actually from Canada. That would explain the niceness. They try to cover up their Canadian heritage with that thick accent and Texan talk but deep down, yep, Canadian.

Love your blog, the fam and I have been here almost daily for the past year, lurking, never commenting, just always laughing. But I thought I'd better set you straight on the Texas nice people thing. Hope you feel better soon. (Maybe some garlic cake? Or vitamin C cupcakes, with pooh swirls of course! That always makes me feel better...)

I'm sorry that you're feeling down, but this is the place to be!! We're all so happy because Texas rocks! Even when it sucks, it rocks! Unlike today's wreck....all I can say is, someone was smokin' some pineapple. Enjoy the lone star state and stop at Chicken Express for some sweet tea if you get a chance! Love yall! (from Huntsville)

Texas is swell, promise. But it is DAMN big. I laughed when we moved to Wilmington, DE for five years and folks wouldn't go to NYCity or DC because it was just "too far". HA! Hell, that is just Waco from here (Austin). El Paso is FAR. Maybe even Dallas to Houston or to San Antonio. Maybe. But one hundred miles to the coolest cities on earth? Not far.

I see the comment about I-10. Its not the devil. Interstate 35 through almost anywhere is the devil. Folks drive so nice on I-95. Folks in Texas are nice out of their cars. IN the cars, not so much.

You know in Texas we say if you don't like the weather then just wait five minutes. Seriously though, I think Texans are optimistic and nice because they never know what is going to be thrown at them: tornados, hurricanes, hail, fire, torrential rain. Gotta roll with the punches. Everyone has allergies in Texas. We don't take sick time for allergies here unless we are dying -- or else we would be out sick all the time. Get some Zyrtec -- its the best.oh, and get well soon. Vaporizors and vicks help too.

AWWW! Another Native Texan here. Agree with the others, get some Zyrtec. If you are in the Houston area, let us know!

As for Dawn's comment on Texans really being Canadian... hmmm, I have met a lot of Canadians here. My husband is one of them is always sick and can't understand Texas accents. But he things we're all very nice, just like in Canada.

I've discovered the reason for the Canadians though. Those Canadians can't help falling for us Texans. I actually know 3 other Canadian men who fell for Texans from my town. Very Strange.

We don't do fluffy and cute here. You know that, right? Our cows are tough and wiry, our rabbits are tough and wiry, even our squirrels are tough and wiry. It's survival of the meanest, orneriest critters you ever seen. And if you get taken down by nothing more than tree pollen... well, maybe you need to give your boots back. ;)

I don't know if anyone else noticed, but the cake is also topped with bougainvillea flowers... ew. Bougainvillea is beautiful, but bugs like 'em and the sap of the plant can be like poison oak...

On a side note, we grew bananas, mangos, papaya, guava and other tropical fruit in our backyard in Hawaii without fertilizer (and mainly with neglect) and our fruit didn't ever look nasty like this overripe mess!

All in all, a delightful wreck! Thank you for making me groan and laugh in exquisite agony once again!

Even the sneezes are bigger in texas. Just moved to texas 18 months ago, so far not much sickness, just a bit of getting used to for a californian. Why does everyone still smoke here? niceness I'm all for...

wedding cakes that looklike they had the icing partially ripped off? not so much

Jen and I actually drove from Alamo to Amarillo. I think that the problem was that, in the process of moving Jen's Grandmother, I had to load and unload a 26' truck by myself and I was going from 85 degrees inside to 30 outside. Couple that with horrendous allergies and the Texas Wraith who haunts my every move, and you get bedridden john.

Ooh, ooh [thrusting hand up in the air wildly] ooh, ooh, I KNOW this one!!

Those bananas, though they look like they are on the bad side of over ripe are actually just PERFECT! Here in the States we get a very limited variety of bananas. I personally like my bananas to have just a touch of green on the corners, firm but sweet. In the Philippines however, if you try to eat one of their hundreds of varieties of bananas with just a touch of green the banana inside will be rock hard and extremely bitter. A lesson I learned the hard way many times. If the fruit looks on the outside like it's already dead, it's actually at that perfect stage of firmness and sweetness.

As for the rest of the cake, I have no explanation, but trust me, those bananas are perfect!

I don't want to defend these cakes too much, but that fruit doesn't look bad to me. Bananas are not edible when they are still that brilliant pale yellow-green that we see in U.S. grocery stores. They only have good banana flavor once they are spotty, like these. And apples will always turn brown on the cut part within a few minutes after you cut them up. On the other hand, I've never seen whole fruit, peel and all, placed on top of a frosted cake before, and I wonder how you would eat such a thing. As to the "Happy Birthday" paper, maybe somebody was getting married on their birthday. This being the Philippines, maybe the dog is going to be the main course ...

John, Texas doesn't hate you. Texas LOVES you and Jen! The weather may be awful in the north half of the state just now, but it's about perfect where I am today-- the Rio Grande Valley. Sunny and around 70 degrees. Come over here for some Tres Leches cake.

"... they're all so stinkin' nice. What I want to know is how do you stay that way when your state is constantly trying to KILL YOU?!?!?!?!"

So, having lived in the Philippines for many years (miliary family) I can tell you a few things...

1. Apples and oranges are mega-expensive, and those bananas are not the little small native ones. I'm sure they were imported from somewhere, hence the state of 'ripeness.'

2. They have the grossest marshmallow-ey frosting that is the consistency of gloopy cool whip. I'm not suprised it looks like that after sitting out in the humid weather. I had to endure this frosting on many a birthday cake, and it is nasty! It's all the bakeries seem to know how to make over there.

Hopefully that explains at least some of what's probably going on in that picture. :)

If you think Texas will make you sick, for wellness sake don't come to Louisiana!! I've lived in Shreveport my whole life and I still have sinus issues. When I travel to nicer, dryer areas of the country, however, I feel great! Go figure. Anyway, I also wanted to express my confusion about who's narrating this post. It starts out with "Jen and I" so I'm thinking it's John, but it says it was "posted by Jen" at the bottom. Well, whoever it is, I hope you feel better soon.I also hope that whoever ate that cakes feels better soon! Blechk!

I don't think the weather map showed too many places in the US where you could go outside and stay dry today. If you happen to live in one of those few places, lucky you!

And driving across Texas is an experience-- starts out looking much like my usual Midwestern surroundings do, but by the end of the day, I'll pretty much be standing around in the desert. So I'll check the map, and sure enough, still in the same state. *Whaddayaknow.

You should have told me! I would have come over and helped you load the truck!Alamo, Texas is only about 10 miles from my house. On the other hand, it's about 808 miles from Amarillo. (Texas cities are not arranged in alphabetical order). That's more than the distance from Chicago to New York City. You definitely went across Texas the long way.

Anyway, that's not the greatest tour of Texas, especially in winter, when the weather gets progressively worse as you get into the Panhandle, so I can understand your bad mood.

Canadian?Nope, not me (unless you're referring to the Canadian River, which is in Texas).I was born in Texas, and so were my parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents. The state's just so doggone big it's hard to get out of it.

There are a bunch of Canadians here in Texas, though. They're OK, as long as they don't brag too much about how great Canada is.

@F-- I love the comment about NY being "too far" from DE. Get away from the coast, and you'll meet plenty of people who have to drive that distance to less interesting places every day and don't give it much thought at all!

hey on that Phillipenes ( could care less if its spelled wrong ) wedding cake wreck... did you notice that the cake board under the cake was covered in "happy birthday" wrapping paper?? When I enlarged it it was the first thing I saw... aside from the rotten fruit, the bad layout, terrible icing and happy birthday cake board... its not too bad!! LMAO!!-Jenn

Experience tells me that your list forgets "fire ants." I have visited your lovely state half a dozen times or so in my life, and I have probably encountered more than half of the items on that Texas agenda you have there. But I always managed to have a great time anyway, with the good making up for the bad!

Lifelong Texan says...Love the first paragraph and the last about Texas! Had to hold my belly laugh because I'm at work about the 7000 hours to drive through! Hope you get to feeling better. We have had crappy weather all this week, actually since November, even we are tired of it. Come back when you have a chance to vacation and enjoy it.

Lol.... not only is that cake craptastic... but bougainvillea plants/flowers should not be used as food decor because of the toxinsWiki:The sap of the Bougainvillea can cause skin rashes similar to poison oak/ivy. So, when working with this plant (e.g., pruning), caution should be exercised to avoid skin contact with the sap (and thorns).

I feel I must apologize on behalf of my state - it's not been it usual sunny self lately. I hope it doesn't kill you. Get some allergy meds and a shot of whiskey. That miiiiiight cure what ails you! Seriously though, hang in there. I can't imagine life without your humor and the daily cake wreckage!

That cake is awful...I'd be pretty ticked if I paid tons of money and THAT is what I got.

Have to comment on the Texas thing...I was born and raised in the greatest state EVER! The Panhandle and Amarillo is home. May not be the prettiest - especially in the wintertime- but the sunsets there cannot be matched!! And John and Jen, you should check out Palo Duro Canyon...it's got some amazing views! On second thought, I think they've had alot of ice/snow/rain lately, so you might not want to drive down into the canyon. And yes, Texas people are the nicest ever! I moved to Mississippi over a year ago and well, they could learn a few things from us Texans!

BUT if you wanna feel better and get some OUTSTANDING food here's some places you NEED to try in Amarillo: Leal's Mexican food (the absolute BEST), Blue Sky (best burger's hands down!), or Kabuki Japanese Steakhouse. I'd skip the Big Texan...they may have the biggest steak in Texas(72oz) and it may be free (if you can eat all of it plus all the sides in less than an hour), but most people like their steaks to actually taste good. LOL! Dang it...now I'm hungry!

Oh, and don't let the allergies scare you off. They are h*ll for even the most hardy of Texans!

Texas is one honkin' big state. And I'm from Nebraska, which is no slouch for size.

But here's the thing to keep your sanity while driving in Texas.

When they say, "Exit 349 next left" in every other state, that means 1/2 mile or 2 miles or maybe five miles.

In Texas...forty miles. Just accept it.

We made the drive from Victoria Texas to Brownsville once and there is all the rugged wasteland with ... gnarled trees that I suppose are mesquite? Maybe? and cactus, those cute flat ones, aobut the size of a dinner plate, a whole bunch of them growing in a clump.Like This.

http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/1ds-4/prickly-pear-cactus-flowering.jpg

And at first you're all, "Wow, look at that cool cactus."

Then 250 miles later, you're just, "This poor miserable state."

So, that's Texas.

And my only reaction to that icky cake is that maybe it's an accident. The fruit I mean. Maybe someone was trying to throw all the rotten fruit in the freezer away and saw what they thought was a pile of white garbage set out on the patio for the trash collector, and just tossed the fruit on top.

I hope you feel better soon. And, next time you come, drive in on I-10 from Louisiana. Just inside the state line, you see a distance sign, "El Paso 847", at 50 miles an hour (with the obligatory stops at roadside parks and Franks in Schulenberg) that's a 16 hour drive. And were gosh darn proud of it.

You never realize how big Texas really is until you're driving through it. XD Eight hours just from El Paso to San Antonio. And I guess our mamas just taught us right here in the south. XP The state hasn't tried to kill me yet, just the drivers.

Hey Dawn, I'm a Canadian living in Texas, but I don't hide it. At least two thirds of my t-shirts have some kind of Canadian identifier on them. 'Cos Canada is awesome.

In fact it's kinda funny listening to people here go on about how "big" Texas is, when Ontario, where I grew up, is almost double the size of Texas. Heck, Texas isn't even the biggest US state, Alaska is.

But Austin, Texas does have the coolest cake show in the WORLD, http://thattakesthecake.org/, which Jen and John totally absolutely have to come to and I'm gonna keep poking until they say yes!

I'm sorry Texas is messin' with ya'll. It really is a fine state. I actually recommend April and October (your tour notwithstanding) to visit us. The wildflower season is beautiful here in late March & April. Kinda makes up for all the stuff we go through the rest of the year.

Thanks so much for being so dedicated to this site even when you're not feeling 100%. Get well soon.

As for today's *cough* wreck, I am truly gobsmacked that no one involved with that 'cake' had the presence of mind to peel and cut out the most rotten portions of the fruit and arrange the best sections more attractively.

I wish the newlyweds all the best and fond memories of the day they married, and hope that one day they can kick back and giggle about their 'once in a lifetime' cake.

OK, the crumbs from the cake visible in with the bumpy icing give a new meaning to the term "dirty iced". And they just grabbed bananas, apples (in Thailand??), and oranges and laid them on the cake--they didn't even bother to remove the pit/center from the apples they did slice. Good grief!

I live in Austin, and all five members in my family are sick with different things. But you must love us anyway, because look how many Texans love you! We may be germ ridden, but we ROCK! Woo hoo!(*cough cough* ouch...)

Yeah, I know, it makes my out of state relatives paranoid. They can't get over how when you pass someone on the road they give a little wave. Or if you are going down the farm to market road faster than them, they will bar-ditch for you. (this means they scoot over to the side and let you pass them)

Just out of curiosity, why don't you write posts in advance, so you don't have to bother with it when you're sick/traveling/knickknackified? When comic-strip artists take a vacation, they write up a surplus of strips beforehand, that can be published while they're away. You guys should try that, so you don't kill yourself or get tics trying to be funny when you're not in the mood.

I love Texas, but Florida is much, much better. Get home while yer alive. And another thing: That cake looks like a real wreck: a second thought regurgitated 11 times over, got into a fight with a popcorn ceiling frosting type, and rotting fruit thrown on for good measure. Yeah; maybe for a survivorman wedding or something. "Ug. Look good to me." :D Get well soon! Or else we will have no wrecks to look forward to, of course! :)

you should have seen MY wedding (in india).. they decorated the tent with merry christmas fabric (it was april) and used nakid (spelling purposeful) cherub statues to hold down the sides. When asked about the statues their fix was to turn the statues around so that the arse was facing the crowd. Add neon pink decorations and you have a 5 day bengali wedding....

Fact: Our state is almost as wide as it is tall, which makes Chicago, IL CLOSER to Texarkana than El Paso. Try making that trip around about FOREVER.Fact: Texas is Bigger than France.Truth: The weather changes faster than you can say 'what nice weather today!'

Welcome Partner to the Lone Star State. Come back now, y'all hear?

WV: glouv. In Texas you might be 76 one day and 20 the next, but only if you've packed up your parka and glouv!

It's okay- Texas hates us, too. We hit a deer coming out of San Antonio and we were stranded in Ft. Stockton overnight and almost couldn't catch a bus to El Paso so my best friend's mom could come rescue us.

It was horrible.

But the people we met were insanely wonderful, one of which PAID FOR OUR BUS FARE. It was amazing.

Oh, poo, John, I'm so sorry! Sounds like you might have cedar fever, which is the price most of us pay for living in The Gret Stet of Texas....It could be worse - you could have eaten some of that tropical fruit....

I live in Texas - sorry our state's not agreeing with you! It's been unusually cold and rainy lately, 'specially for this time of year, and a lot of us are coming down with that stuff. Get better soon :)

Its totally allergies. Here in Texas the cedar and mold like to attack every sense and all your clear breathing and the like. Even having lived her for 10 plus years I am incapacitated all the time due to the darned crappy trees and fungi.

Sorry you're sick! It's sure not just you; I know a LOT of my fellow Texans have been sick lately. As a few commenters have already said, we usually have much better weather this time of year (be very glad you're not here in mid-summer!) ...but the allergens are over the top year-round. I grew up here in Austin understanding my city to be the allergy capital of the nation. Maybe the world!You've got a lot of fans in Texas, though! Obviously Texas doesn't hate you.

Gary, how could you forget fire ants? They're the single most evil thing in the state! Well, second most; I almost forgot our dear old governor.

Okay, so the cake says Happy Wending, I don't even know what that is! It's on a happy birthday cake board. And the apples are sliced, but still have seeds in them? Who thought that up?!?! I love how they are already turning brown....

I've been allergic to Texas for the 8 years I've lived here. However, I think everyone is so nice because we are full of delicious food! Chicken fried steak, brisket, and queso are great mood elevators.

Did you know that Texas is apparently the only state that has the right to become its own country again? And BTW...other roads to avoid here:360I-20I-30And, Friday rush hour starts on Thursday afternoon.Its just best to not drive here ;)But, this sure is a pretty place, and the weather is great, if you don't mind being hot ;)I LOVE TEXAS!!

Feel better soon, John! Give those germs hell. And yeah, Texas is huge. I've had to drive across it three times (once because of a canceled flight, twice for moving purposes). I can't say I really enjoyed any of those experiences. Rant on! I totally understand.

You have to be a teensy little bit fair to the decorators of that cake... I was married in Bali and can tell you that you can take nothing for granted about planning a wedding in a foreign country. When the top layer of our cake was returned to our villa on the morning after , in order to be taken home and saved as is customary where we come from, it was brought to us on a plate with two cake forks. An entire fruit cake, enough for 30 people! The photographer asked us to change the time of the ceremony so the light would be better. WTF ! And that was at a 5 star hotel. It was elegantly presented and the service was impeccable but the understanding was absent. So I see this particular example of wedding cake as being the local interpretation of the request for " a cake topped with a selection of fruit", only it is clearly not a 5 star hotel they were dealing with.

This Austin local can testify: the weather here is EVIL right now. It's swapping from winter mode to spring mode, so going from dry but chilly to half-rainy and cold and half-hot and humid. It's not usually this bad, though; in a couple of months things will go back to the usual scorching heat. (Just be glad you didn't come in August or September; freezing rain is better than being roasted alive.)

Get well soon!! Be nice to Texas and I promise it will stop trying to murder you!!

Good lord that fruit is awful looking. "WTF" is what I said out loud when I saw that cake. Except of course I didn't say the letters, I said the words. EXACTLY, you're on a tropical island for crying out loud, go pick up some d@mn fruit out of the sand!

Sorry to hear the trip is rough, but glad to hear the secret is out (that Texans are darned nice folks despite all the braggin' about our fine state.) Some fer-ners think we're all ego, but it's really just about having a pretty good life and being all friendly-like (despite trying to be killed by rattle snakes, scorpions, killer bees, fire ants, water mocassins, and crummy weather.)

Welcome to Texas! I wouldn't worry to much about the weather, you never know it might be 70 and sunny within a day or two. I hope you start feeling better....not only is the fruit rotten they couldn't even take the time to peel it.

Ha, I'm a recent Texas transplant (Austin, specifically. Which may or may not count, depending on your opinion of Austin...and I'm from DC, which is essentially the most opposite of all opposites in Oppositeland.) and I noticed the same thing. SO NICE! Everywhere I go -- even the flippin' clearance section of Target -- everyone is super nice and ready to chat like we're all just friends hanging out in one giant living room. FREAKY, I tell you.

The cake looks like someone took to it with a few cans of shaving foam.

I'm not sure which I like more - the heavily bruised bananas, or the rapidly browning apple quarters. All coyly peeping past the few carefully(?) placed bright purple orchid blooms (which only serve to highlight the sad state of the fruit).

I'd have to disagree with the person who said that most people in the Philippines would just be happy to have the food and Americans are too picky.... I've meant people from the Philippines, they appreciate beautiful things and I doubt many would accept the frosting job as ok, and I'll give a little and say maybe the fruit had a hard ride to the site, but everthing else in the scene shows a nicely appointed simple wedding and the pic had to be sent to CW. Probably by the bride to let off some steam for a horrible looking cake on her special day. Did anyone notice the boards under the side cakes say "Happy Birthday"? Cake decorating by professionals has a standard world wide regardless of the country the cake is in. So I'm not buying your hating on the good ol' USofA.

I always know I'm getting close to Austin (home) when I start sneezing! The cedar fever has been known to knock down even the hardiest of people. You learn to live on allergy pills. (And look out for the rattlesnakes, coyotes, scorpions, brown recluses, and copperheads! Other than that it's a great place to live.)-Jessica in Austin

The cake is hideous, but fruits in tropical countries are not modified to look perfect. I am Colombian and fruit there always has brown spots and doesn't look like perfect, wax fruit. Fruit in the United States is not what natural fruit looks like, sorry to break it to you.

Wow...can we say cultural differences? On the islands that's a damn fine cake. They have less hang ups about hollywood perfection than Americans. 99% of the people on the island would enjoy the fruit and be happy to have it. Its not up to American standards but it still fine to eat.

Same for the paper. They tried they just have no clue how high the standards were. They are on a beach where the wind blows. The wind blows sand.

I enjoy laughing at true wreaks made by clueless 'bakers' but this is nothing more than laughing at some poor woman or man in another country that tried their best to please a super picky American.

just an fyi. the fruit isn't close to being rotten. i guarantee it has more depth and complexity than any of the super-homogenized, monochromatic, pesticide-sprayed crap we see in our markets... it looks rotten to us because-oh you know-it's natural.

Welcome back to Texas! It takes 12 hours to drive from Wichita Falls to El Paso. It only takes 9 and a half to drive from Wichita Falls to Graceland! Sorry you're sick again, but like stewbie2 said, if you ain't got allergies when you get here, then you'll def have 'em by the time you leave!Get to feelin' better. Melanie in Austin

I'd like to point out a couple of things if I could. First of all, this cake was made for a very high end wedding at a very high end hotel in the Philippines. It was not made by some poor old lady in a village. It was made by professional bakers.

Secondly, I have seen some pretty amazing cakes that were made in the Philippines. There are skilled and lousy bakers everywhere. To assume that a certain ethnicity must be proud of a poorly made cake is oddly bigoted.

Lastly, well made cakes are not the sole property of Americans. Venture into a bakery in China or France or Uzbekistan and you are likely to see true works of art. I guess I think that cake has become universal.

Texans are really disguised Canadians? Lol! I love that. I remember the Canadians temporarily here for fire training were convinced every snake and spider was dangerous and out to get them, and one actually asked if it was usually this hot, and when would it start cooling down? It was the beginning of summer and only 89 degrees that day! Poor guy sure got a rude awakening.

I understand what you mean. I have lived here all my life and I'm plagued with chronic allergies. The minute I leave the state to go live in Missouri for a couple of months, I cease to have allergy symptoms. It's worse when you live near the coast like I do.

That fruit looks delicious! I can't say much for the presentation, but the bananas have the perfect amount of black on them, showing them to be ripe and sweet but not over-ripe and mushy, the whole apples have a very nice colour and apple pieces will look like that soon after being cut. The cake itself looks yummy in a home-made type of way. It's not pretty, and the fruit doesn't belong, but it's not terrible, or unintentionally funny, or nasty-looking. It just looks amateur, and who says it was made by a professional cake-baker?

Wow, that's...an interesting cake. I was born in the Philippines, and I remember many of my birthday cakes being tiny works of art (a carousel, Snow White and the 7 Dwarves, a Rapunzel with her tower) and they were just gorgeous. I'm not sure what happened here! In fact, one of my childhood treats was being taken past the bakery to look at all the awesome things in the window.

Margaritas, sweetie...margaritas. a slow and steady infusion of tequila & lime into your system will take care of pretty much anything that's tryin' to kill ya. Sorry you're sick, but glad you're in Texas:D

Everything is bigger in Texas! Including the suckage. I've lived in Texas for nearly ten years now and the key is to figure out exactly how many allergy meds you can be on without passing out facedown in your chilli.

I might be the one Texan NOT on any allergy meds. Somehow I've managed to avoid seasonal allergies although I've lived her 26 years. My husband is not so lucky.

We've driven many times between Houston and Amarillo (I don't know where Alamo is, but I'm going to look it up!) I can completely commiserate--that panhandle can seem ENDLESS. I mean, once we leave Fort Worth, we practically have to brace ourselves mentally and emotionally...we won't be seeing anything interesting or eating anything tasty for the next several hundred miles (you see, we've got Colorado in our sights when we're making this journey...Amarillo is not the final destination). It is quite exhausting, even physically, to drive that north-west-ward leg. The wind is fighting you the whole way, the sun's in your eyes, there is dirt and dust everywhere, it smells of cattle and not much else...

My daughter got married in Nicaragua, and the wedding guests brought gifts in all kinds of wrapping paper. Some said Happy Birthday, some was Christmasy looking, etc. I thought it was really weird, until it dawned on my that they didn't speak (or read) English. They had just chosen paper they thought was pretty. I suspect the cake decorator here did the same thing.And John, I hope you feel better soon. I'm a native Texan, and suffer from cedar fever. But I've lived in other states, and came back here for the barbecue and Blue Bell ice cream. And Mexican food.

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What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

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